• Record Label: Sub Pop
  • Release Date: Mar 22, 2005
Metascore
74

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 14
  2. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. Black Forest is a little less scuzzy and raw than the band's earlier work, but it passes the test: the later at night and the louder you play it, the better it sounds.
  2. One of the most playful end-of-the-world concept albums ever created.
  3. They have a knack for making things just wrong.
  4. Black Forest should make a great entry point for anyone not familiar with their infant years, highlighting their already-mastered brand of scuzzy-yet-mechanical punk groove.
  5. Mojo
    80
    Cold yet compulsive. [Jun 2005, p.106]
  6. Magnet
    80
    The A Frames ultimately come off as serious students of history, not fashion. [#67, p.84]
  7. Black Forest radiates stark sexuality, making it stimulating and alienating, suggestive and impassive, suitable for the leather-clad lynx dancing away her post-industrial blues and the bald guy in the turtleneck with the frozen expression in the corner.
  8. It's not too hard to hear amid the swamp bass and prickly guitars, that this group seriously brings the funk.
  9. Spin
    75
    Packed with sparse, whirring, and danceable noise-rock refinements. [Apr 2005, p.108]
  10. Smacks of pure aggression, the kind which made household names out of such groundbreaking labels as SST and Amphetamine Reptile.
  11. Here A-Frames teeter on the line between consistency and monotony, falling mostly on the former side-- their endless doomsaying can grow tiresome but more often it's fun to play along.
User Score
tbd

No user score yet- Awaiting 3 more ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. BradE
    Jul 22, 2005
    10
    Steve Albini must be proud of this band. Primitive, raw, scuzzy, this record is a true classic.